Peer to Peer: the next frontier in telematics

15 Nov 2017

by Andy Goldby

The Floow present GoWithFloow at DIA Conference in Munich

Innovation is the heart and soul of The Floow. It’s what drives us and why we’re leading the industry with our unique approaches to scoring, education, coaching and incentives that are in use by insurers, fleet operators and auto manufacturers the world over.

But the market keeps evolving and we have to keep innovating because the needs and preferences of drivers are changing all the time.

And one thing that’s changing rapidly is people’s attitudes towards consumption and ownership. Whether it’s Uber, Airbnb or ZipCar, consumers are demanding more flexible, cost effective approaches to consuming the services they need. The sharing economy is upon us, and this is having a huge impact on attitudes towards driving and car ownership.

Once upon a time, young people were desperate to get their hands on a driver’s license and a car. These days, the number of new license holders is dropping like a stone in developed markets like the US, UK and Europe - in the UK the number of teenagers learning to drive has reduced by a massive 30% in the last decade. At the same time, new car registrations are also starting to fall as the number of people using car sharing schemes has rocketed. In Europe, more than 5 million people regularly use carshare services and for every shared vehicle on the road, somewhere between 7 and 20 new vehicles are not being bought.

And those of us who do still own a car are finding something that’s potentially frustrating. Around 90% of the time, our cars sit unused.

So what if we were to enable you to lend your car to trusted individuals for a fee, to make better use of your investment?

This is an innovation that The Floow unveiled earlier today at the Digital Insurance Agenda conference in Munich in the form of a new peer to peer car sharing platform.

GoWithFloow is designed to provide a platform for car sharing that will bring together people willing to hire out their vehicles with those looking for a car to rent at a time and place to suit them. The platform allows you to search your local area for available cars, make requests to borrow a car, chat to the car’s owner, and arrange to pick up the keys. After the car has successfully been returned, you will also be able to rate the car owner or the borrower of your car depending on which side of the transaction you were on.

This rating gives both car lenders and borrowers the confidence and trust so necessary when you’re taking part in a transaction of this sort. But where the platform differs from other examples of car sharing and vehicle lending is the additional of our telematics engine and scoring system which is integrated into the software. This means that when a driver borrows your car and starts their journey, their behaviour can be tracked using our smartphone-as-a-sensor capabilities. We use this information to develop a score for the driver to help lenders decide who to lend their car to.

By introducing the GoWithFloow platform today in Munich we are challenging insurance companies to join us in bringing the proposition to market. We believe that this sort of capability will help meet changing mobility demands by creating a marketplace of vehicles. The more cars on the platform, the more beneficial it will be for everyone, built on the principles of convenience, transparency, trust and innovation.

If you want to find out more about GoWithFloow, or would like to discuss joining the platform, please email info@thefloow.com